Governor of Lesbos
Philanthropenos remained at Philadelphia until 1326, possibly also 1327, but it appears that he was then appointed as governor of the strategically important Byzantine island of Lesbos, since he was dismissed from the same post in 1328 by Andronikos III Palaiologos.
In 1335, Lesbos was seized by a Latin army under the Genoese Lord of Phocaea, Domenico Cattaneo, and Andronikos III raised a fleet of 83 ships to recover the island, which arrived in June 1336. The fleet disembarked an army, led by Alexios Philanthropenos, which swiftly secured the entire island except for the capital, Mytilene. Philanthropenos countered the strong garrison of 500 Latin mercenaries by inducing them, group by group, to come over to him. The siege lasted until November, when Domenico capitulated, returning Lesbos and Phocaea to the Empire. In the next year, Philanthropenos was able to thwart a Turkish attack on the island by bribing the Turks. Exuberantly praised by contemporaries like Nikephoros Gregoras as the "Belisarius of the Palaiologan era", Alexios Philanthropenos was left by Andronikos III as governor of the island, where he lived until his death, which occurred probably in the 1340s.
Read more about this topic: Alexios Philanthropenos, Biography
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